Replicating and Applying a Neuro-Cognitive Experimental Technique in HCI Research

In cognitive neuroscience the sense of agency is defined as the as the experience of controlling one’s own actions and, through this control, affecting the external world. At CHI 2012 I presented a paper entitled “I did that! Measuring Users’ Experience of Agency in their own Actions” [1]. This extended abstract draws heavily on that paper, which described an implicit measure called intentional binding. This measure, developed by researchers in cognitive neuroscience, has been shown to provide a robust implicit measure for the sense of agency. My interest in intentional binding stemmed from prior HCI literature, (e.g. the work of Shneiderman) which emphasises the importance of the sense of control in human-computer interactions. The key question behind the CHI 2012 paper was: can we apply intention binding to provide an implicit measure for the experience of control in human-computer interactions? In investigating this question, replication was a key element of the experimental process.